Transcript of "General introduction to Open Source"

1.
Outline Who am I? Open Source Legal Framework Open Source around you Please contact me!
What is Open Source?
Bart Van Loon
2nd April 2009

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Outline Who am I? Open Source Legal Framework Open Source around you Please contact me!
The next 45 minutes. . .
Open Source
1
What is it?
Background and History
Why use it?
How to use it?
Legal Framework
2
Open Source Licenses
Similarities with commercial licenses
Diﬀerences with commercial licenses
Open Source around you
3
Europe
Belgium
Schoten

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Outline Who am I? Open Source Legal Framework Open Source around you Please contact me!
Zeropoint.IT
facilitates software development outsourcing to Pakistan
strong focus on Open Source software and philosophy
international company, running for 99% on Open Source
infrastructure

5.
Outline Who am I? Open Source Legal Framework Open Source around you Please contact me!
What is it?
Open Source
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a. . .
Kind of Technology?
Movement?
Software Distribution Model?
Business Model?
Software License Property?

6.
Outline Who am I? Open Source Legal Framework Open Source around you Please contact me!
What is it?
Open Source
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a. . .
Kind of Technology?
Movement?
Software Distribution Model?
Business Model?
Software License Property!

7.
Outline Who am I? Open Source Legal Framework Open Source around you Please contact me!
Background and History
Some History
Once upon a time. . .
1984: GNU project of Richard Stallman at MIT
1985: start of Free Software Foundation
1991: First release of Linux kernel by Linus Torvalds
1993: Development of sourceforge.net
1994: Red Hat is founded (commercial support and
distribution of GNU/Linux)
1995: Community starts on Apache Web server
1998: Term “Open Source” is coined

8.
Outline Who am I? Open Source Legal Framework Open Source around you Please contact me!
Background and History
Background
FLOSS?
Confusion about the name: Free Software.

13.
Outline Who am I? Open Source Legal Framework Open Source around you Please contact me!
Why use it?
Why use Open Source?
(from a user’s perspective)
It’s all about freedom!
Use
1
Study
2
Modify
3
Distribute
4

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Outline Who am I? Open Source Legal Framework Open Source around you Please contact me!
How to use it?
How to use Open Source
Nobody is telling you what to do!
Hire a professional!
You have the freedom to
choose the best one. . .
and to change your mind
afterwards.

15.
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Open Source Licenses
Open Source Licenses
The ten commandments
Open source doesn’t just mean access to the source code.
Free Redistribution
1
Source Code
2
Derived Works
3
Integrity of The Author’s Source Code
4
No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
5
No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
6
Distribution of License
7
License Must Not Be Speciﬁc to a Product
8
License Must Not Restrict Other Software
9
License Must Be Technology-Neutral
10

16.
Outline Who am I? Open Source Legal Framework Open Source around you Please contact me!
Open Source Licenses
Open Source Licenses
Two big families
BSD
GPL
four freedoms four freedoms
obligation to ensure gives you the right to
that these four things decide what rights to
hold true for the next bundle with the
person you give it to software
“viral” “freeer”

17.
Outline Who am I? Open Source Legal Framework Open Source around you Please contact me!
Similarities with commercial licenses
What’s the same?
A lot!
Respect for ownership
It’s all about granting and
retaining rights
Governed by the same laws!
Sometimes they just don’t
ﬁt

19.
Outline Who am I? Open Source Legal Framework Open Source around you Please contact me!
Europe
Open Source in Europe
It’s all over the place!
Big governments try
“The European Commission is placing open standards and open-source software at the
centre of its eﬀorts to promote interoperable e-government services with a new working
paper introduced this month.” — ZDNet
Small governments do
“Nearly half of European local government bodies are using open source software while
nearly a third don’t know that they are using open source at all.” — The Register

20.
Outline Who am I? Open Source Legal Framework Open Source around you Please contact me!
Belgium
Open Source in Belgium
From the federal government to a huge conference
Open Standards for the future
From September 2008 onwards, all document exchanges within the services of the Belgian
Government will have to be in an open, standard format. Only ODF is accepted as such a
standard.
FOSDEM
“5000+ geeks, 200+ lectures, 2 days, 0 e”
Profoss
“Profoss wants to give a good idea of the whole ICT market and let you compare
traditional solutions to open source solutions. We take a pragmatic look at the market,
and you get the information you need!”

21.
Outline Who am I? Open Source Legal Framework Open Source around you Please contact me!
Schoten
Open Source in Schoten
Jan Verlinden is the man!
Didn’t go unnoticed
“Schoten adopted open source software within its server IT environment and replaced
numerous proprietary applications. According to the municipality, the migration was a big
success. Due to the new server environment, Schoten could not only reduce related IT
expenses but also increase productivity and operation ability.” — OSOR
An example for governments around the world.
“Wie smaalt over het kwakkelende opensource-project van de Duitse stad M¨nchen kan
u
voor een klinkend tegenvoorbeeld dichter bij huis terecht, in Schoten met name” — Zea
Partners
And we’re not the only ones proud of it.